Advice from the old lady:
My mother is a covert malignant NPD and also schizoaffective although never diagnosed because she didn’t trust therapists or physicians and medications and of course nothing is wrong with her. She was also sexually abused as a young woman by her father. As a consequence she kept my sisters and I AWAY from her father. We never knew him (a good thing). Her compensation was extreme compartmentalization and she took a cerebral/vulnerable path as an NPD. She was forever the victim in life but also covertly a master manipulator who got amusement from turning family members into one another and stirring up conflict. My father was wise to divorce her, although he always felt guilty about it; inappropriately so.
Having grown up in that environment creates an awareness of this type of behavior that is innate. It also is familiar and hence somewhat comfortable. I learned to recognize and return fire if you will in dealing with the NPD parent. Like
@Fruitbat I can easily employ the skillset if necessary and I recognize it very rapidly in others. I too will call out narcissists quietly and subtly in ways they pick up…and it does tend to encourage them to target someone else.
I have a tendency toward dark triad men in that they fascinate me. I also understand them to such a degree that they feel known in a way very few understand…because they always have scars and wounds and damage that I recognize through their behavioral patterns. I am empathic. There is nothing more intoxicating to a dark triad person than to feel loved in an empathetic way. The catch is I still *see* their pathos, and my own. So I am able to manage or handle the NPD in a way few can. That and I am unafraid to call narcissism what it is to their face. So they know I see them as they really are. That allows them to be who they really are. It allows them to be vulnerable and accepted without shame. And so they fall for me because they fall in love with the acceptance they feel in spite of their brokenness.
And in my own pathos I’m not sure I would relate to a thoroughly healthy person (if such a thing really exists).
The main thing is self awareness/self acceptance; self love. Develop that and you’ll go a long way toward your own growth and you’ll gain immense patience for the imperfections of others.
